Wei-Hwa's Puzzle Challenge Number 3 by Google
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As a reminder, if you want your friends who do not have Google accounts to play (or want a faster loading page) , go to:
Puzzle:
June 9th, 2006: The Google US Puzzle Championship is next Saturday, June 16th. It's used to select the US Puzzle Team, but puzzle-lovers of all sorts should find something interesting in the puzzles. Let's have a big "G" (for Google):
Here's a puzzle based on Erich Friedman's "Distance," from the 2003 Google U.S. Puzzle Championship. Label 14 of the circles above with different numbers from 1 to 14, such that the distance between 1 and 2 is less than the distance between 2 and 3, and so on. Four circles should remain empty.
If the "±" sign is selected, you can click on the top part of a circle to increase it and click on the bottom to decrease it. Or, select a number in the palette and click on a circle to fill that number into the circle. Deselect the active selection to create a blank. You win if all the "distances" to the right turn green.
Hints:
Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. If you want to share your answers, you can send me a screenshot by email/url of your proud achievement. Last one is a rotten egg.
Here are solutions by two smart puzzle sovlers (same answers)
Puzzle:
June 9th, 2006: The Google US Puzzle Championship is next Saturday, June 16th. It's used to select the US Puzzle Team, but puzzle-lovers of all sorts should find something interesting in the puzzles. Let's have a big "G" (for Google):
Here's a puzzle based on Erich Friedman's "Distance," from the 2003 Google U.S. Puzzle Championship. Label 14 of the circles above with different numbers from 1 to 14, such that the distance between 1 and 2 is less than the distance between 2 and 3, and so on. Four circles should remain empty.
If the "±" sign is selected, you can click on the top part of a circle to increase it and click on the bottom to decrease it. Or, select a number in the palette and click on a circle to fill that number into the circle. Deselect the active selection to create a blank. You win if all the "distances" to the right turn green.
Hints:
- Start with the big numbers and work your way downwards. :-)
- If you want to practice on smaller puzzles (to get the idea), go to: http://www.stetson.edu/~efriedma/distance/
Answers are usually (and will be) posted in the comments section. If you want to share your answers, you can send me a screenshot by email/url of your proud achievement. Last one is a rotten egg.
Here are solutions by two smart puzzle sovlers (same answers)
- http://stevec.qiguang.net/wp-gallery2.php?g2_itemId=362
- http://gbitten.blogspot.com/2006/06/wei-hwas-puzzle-challenges.html
By Puzzle Solver Wannabe at 1:58 PM
15 Comments:
This one is difficult. The UI doesn't help as it's not easy to move the numbers around.
Yeah, the usability on this is horrible. Anyway, if you have the plus and minus enabled, click the top half increases the number and bottom half decreases the number.
There should be a better undo or some click to delete the circle content.
Ohh, so close... I was only 1 number from solving the puzzle (couldn't place the final "1"). I'll just have to keep trying...
I agree, the interface is hard to control. Thanks for telling me about the top half/bottom half thing, Puzzle Solver Wannabe. Somehow, I missed it in the tiny notes.
I think the two biggest distances you can get is 14-13 (5.657) and 13-12 (5).
Deleting numbers is a pain.
This was pretty fun. :) Are there multiple solutions, or just one? I posted my solution on my blog, so if anyone wants to check theirs against mine to see if it's different, you can visit my site -- http://stevec.qiguang.net
I solved it too, solution is here.
I have the same answer. I do not think there is another solution. They layout is pretty unique itself.
It would have been great if the distance was shown as a tooltip when hovering over the circles.
That was quick guys :-), I didn't even start trying to solve it before I found the solution.
http://blog.simpleio.net
This one was easy. Working backwards makes it a cinch, especially if you keep track of the possible distances (the first thing I did was write them all down.) It wasn't too hard to maneuver the numbers, but I wish there was a button to just blank a circle.
It helps to make a table of hypotenuse distances and then work down.
This time I wrote a C program to solve it. The program and solution on are on my site. I also verified that the solution is unique.
I'm normally pretty good at these sort of things, but struggled to get this one. Like many I was tempted to resort to code, but figured that's not really the point.
Instead I worked out the order of hypotenuse lengths...
0:1=1.00, 1:1=1.41, 0:2=2.00, 1:2=2.24, 2:2=2.83, 0:3=3.00, 1:3=3.16, 2:3=3.61, 0:4=4.00, 1:4=4.12, 3:3=4.24, 2:4=4.47, 3:4=5.00, 4:4=5.66
14 of them. But I only needed 13 - So which one doesn't get used?
For me that turned out to be the biggest challenge.
(the odd one out is 2:3=3.61).
And as noted by others - working backwards is a good idea.
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